ANDY Cole has urged Blues to show the required mental strength to win promotion, and warned Championship leaders Sunderland that they should not rest easy.

Blues can reclaim the second automatic spot tomorrow night by drawing at Leicester City in their game in hand.

And a win would take them two points clear of Derby and cut the gap to the Black Cats by a similar margin.

Cole, who made his debut in Saturday's crucial 2-1 defeat of Southampton that helped put Blues firmly back in the running, said: "It's more about mental strength now than anything else.

"Derby know we are breathing down their necks and it's not all over with Sunderland yet. I know they are on a great run but hopefully we can catch them too.

"We've just got to worry about ourselves. We've got ourselves back into a position where if we win our next four games, we've got a chance of being promoted automatically.

"There is still a lot of football to be played. Derby are twitching a bit and we've twitched a bit the last couple of games as well. Hopefully we can hold our nerve now and kick on."

Derby's defeat at Ipswich Town, plus goalkeeper Stephen Bywater's sending off on top of defender Darren Moore being ruled out for the rest of the regular season through suspension, suggests that the Rams - who drew their previous two matches - are running into problems.

So is the momentum suddenly back with Blues?

"I really do hope so, but you just don't know," said Cole. "This division is so topsy-turvy. You can go on an unbelievable run and something happens, you lose two on the bounce and the other teams have caught you.

"The lads were saying to me that we had two games cancelled because of the pitch and the weather in January when the team had great momentum. God willing, we can come out with a positive result tomorrow and kick on from there. But nothing is easy in this division. Anyone can beat anyone."

Midfielder Damien Johnson will have scans on his hamstring today after feeling a twinge 22 minutes into the game against Southampton.

He said afterwards that he didn't think the problem was serious, but Cole has only just managed to get on the field after being sidelined for three weeks due to a hamstring tear.

"I am feeling fine," said Cole, who was conservative yet clever. "The result was more important but I needed to get through the game because the manager has brought me here to try to do a job for the team and I needed to get through it for him as well.

"I couldn't blaze away and be knackered after 70 minutes. I had to try and do things the economical way and I was happy. I was pleased the team won. We held on in the end, which was disappointing because we went 2-0 and we should have shut the game up."

Apart from boosting their goalpower, that is the sort of scenario boss Steve Bruce hopes Cole will help with.

Since joining on loan from Portsmouth on March 27, Cole has watched the three games he was unable to participate in and has noticed Blues can be excitable.

"When you are playing with a lot of kids and youth and exuberance, it is difficult because we can keep the ball in better areas and sometimes we gave it away, especially when it got back to 2-1," he said.

"For example, once Gary McSheffrey kept the ball in and crossed it, the keeper caught it and put them on the attack. He should have put it in row Z because the keeper can't kick it from there."